An employment system is any electronic system which facilitates those looking for a position (i.e., employment seekers, or job seekers) in finding a position and/or which facilitates those seeking to fill a position (i.e., employee seekers, or employers) in finding someone to fill the position. Typical employment systems enable employers to post available positions, and further enable job seekers to search available positions for positions that meet some search criteria. Some employment systems enable job seekers to post a resume, and further enable employers to search for resumes that contain certain keywords. However, traditional employment systems are inefficient for many reasons.
Typically, employment systems associate an open position with only one employer account. It is frequently assumed that the same person (e.g., a human resources recruiter) uses the account to provide the system with details about the open position and to review applicants. However, in the corporate recruiting space, frequently more than one person is involved in the hiring process. For example, a human resources recruiter may be in charge of facilitating the hiring process (e.g., working with a hiring manager to generate a job description, posting the job to various online and media resources, scheduling interviews and making official offers), while a hiring manager with greater expertise in the job's requirements is focused on reviewing and interviewing candidates, evaluating trade-offs between a candidate's skill set and the job's requirements. As a result, typical employment systems are inefficient for many corporate employee seekers.
Further, typical employment systems are either employer-specific (i.e., the system is devoted to a single employer) or are public (i.e., employment seekers are visible to and accessible by all employers and vice versa). Employer-specific systems provide exclusive access by the employer to participating candidates; however, the pool of candidates may be smaller than would be present in a public employment system. A public employment system provides a larger pool of candidates; however, an employer may lose out on good candidates because of the larger employer pool.